Le tact des mots : écrire et discuter l'histoire d'un sujet sensible

Does writing history about a sensitive issue require tactfulness? This question brings us at the core of a distinction between rhetoric and academic writing. As an expert in discursive efficiency, a rhetorician will tackle this sensitive issue as a technical problem. Taking into account that this issue may inflame passions, he or she will find strategies to convey his or her message in relatively good conditions. Yet, an historian may feel reticent with regard to some epistemological and ethical points of view of such pragmatism. Thinking of adapting our own discourse to the audience amounts to compromise the uniqueness of truth and to sink into a kind of self-censorship. This contribution offers conceptual tools and didactic leads in order to overcome the division between rhetoric and history. The stakes are high since it is a matter of the very possibility to conduct a soothed discussion about history in a multicultural context.